Sunday, February 10, 2013

Scenes From The New Egypt

When Senator Rand Paul questioned shipping Abrams battle tanks and F-16s to Egypt because of its instability, he was totally correct. The graffiti shown above at the American embassy, a mixture of Islamist and anti-Muslim Brotherhood slogans is a perfect sign of the times.

The Muslim Brotherhood continues to dominate the country, and while protests continue, the response has taken an ugly turn.

None of this is any different from what the original 'Arab Spring' protestors accused the
Mubarak government of doing, and in many cases the abuses are even worse.There have even been what appear to be assassinations of opposition figures.

The Islamists show no signs of moderating their stance or their insistence on rule by strict sharia law. The Muslim Brotherhood is working diligently to have Abdul Rahman al-Bar, 50, a hard line member of the Brotherhood's Supreme Guidance Council appointed as Grand Mufti of Egypt. That would make al-Bar the supreme religious leader and authority in Egypt, with the power to issue fatwas, influence court decisions and rule on Islamic jurisprudence.

The country is in dire economic straits. Tourism is almost dead, inflation is rampant and food staples, medicines and cooking oil are in short supply as merchants hoard their stocks waiting for prices to rise.

Egypt is desperately short of foreign exchange. As many Egyptians withdraw their savings due to a lack of confidence in the country's banks, the Egyptian pound has declined sharply in value as prices have continued to inflate. Foreign exchange has become so scare that some dealers are actually sending people out into the streets looking for people with dollars to sell at black market rates far above the existing official one.